May 18, 2015

Hey guys!
Did you see the trailer and stuff for Assassin’s
Creed: Syndicate? It’s a brand new
start for the franchise, and the game that will do next-gen consoles
justizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

May 14, 2015

That was what I asked myself several times
throughout the game, most notably in the second-to-last chapter. See, in the first mission there’s a red mist
and lights and tentacles that appear out of nowhere that -- well, they don’t
really attack you per se. They just kind of hang there menacingly, and
none of your attacks work on them.
They’re gone before long, though, both in the mission and the story at
large. Seriously, I don’t think anyone comments on what they saw. Ever.
It’s pretty much stricken from the game -- a game which, I should say
upfront, I’ve finished as of this post (as compared to the earlier ones).

Since the game pretty much decided to ignore it, I
did too. I focused on the main plot,
i.e. the war between the on-the-ropes Rubrum and the invading Militesi
Empire. As such, the main villain of the
game (if you could call him that) is Imperial Marshal Cid Aulstyne, the guy
behind the Empires forces…if we assume that said empire has no distinction
between military leaders and political leaders, but whatever. It’s safe to say that he’s the one players
will have to face off at some point -- because with this being a Final Fantasy game, and following in the
footsteps of vanilla FF13, anyone who
is old and has wrinkles is evil and must die.

May 11, 2015

Credit where credit’s due -- MKX deserves some props for being the first game to have an
item-unlocking shop where a virtual wolf can attack you.

The Krypt could have been a simple menu, but
apparently the guys at NetherRealm went the extra mile and created a
faux-dungeon crawler for you to move around in.
It’s not what I’d call amazing, and it’s probably an annoyance to anyone
who just wants a menu to buy costumes/concept art/Fatalities, but it has its
purpose. Seeing as how you have to get
in-game currency to unlock stuff, it incentivizes players to get in deep with
the other game modes -- which is good, because it makes them practice without
necessarily “wasting time” in training mode.

There are multiple “towers” for players to tackle
at their leisure, each with their own unique conditions (the Test Your Might
tower being the place to button-mash your way to glory). Okay, sure, playing against CPUs isn’t exactly the best way to train, but it’s
something; it lets the player get used to the game before they take the fight
online or against friends. Or,
alternatively, it gets them ready for MKX’s
Faction War, wherein you choose a clan at the start and complete challenges
(online or off) to boost your Faction’s rank and gain rewards. As far as I know, that’s a bust -- because
surprise, surprise, everyone wanted to be part of the ninja team and there’s no
point in even trying to fight back.

So forget it.
Let’s move on to the story.

Spoilers are about to GET OVER HERE, so watch out. Also, I thought about replacing all the Cs in
this post with Ks, but that would’ve been stupid and annoying, so screw it.

May 4, 2015

I’d just like to take a moment to mention that in
my first match of Mortal Kombat X, I
managed to pull off a Fatality just by mashing a couple of directions and
hitting a button. It was complete luck,
but somehow I found Jax ripping open Reptile’s head and stuffing a cigar into
it like an ashtray. Almost immediately,
my brother accused me of looking it up on the internet beforehand -- the
greatest of sins to be committed when trying out a fighting game raw. (Though it’s worth noting he spent a fair
amount of time with vanilla Marvel 3
before our inaugural match.)

I think at that stage, he drastically
overestimated how much I cared about winning.
As I’ve said, I’ve never cared about Mortal
Kombat, and anyone who assumes that I hate it is justified in doing
so. I’m not saying that anyone who does
like it is wrong; it’s just that it isn’t for me. I’ve got an armada’s worth of biases, and
unfortunately they’ve kept MK from
even setting sail on the metaphorical ocean.

But hope springs eternal. Maybe this, NetherRealm’s latest attempt to
bring in new fans and old loyalists, and
offer up the TRUE next-gen fighting game, is the chosen one. Does it have what it takes? If nothing else, can it win me over at last?